With my grade 10 students, we are revising the simple present tense at the moment and while planning what I’ll do, I listed some activities that I used in the previous years as warmers or fillers or follow-ups. I’ll be happy if you also add your favourite Present Simple Tense activities here.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF …

• Brainstorm what they do everyday.
• Ask them to write the name of their favourite object on a piece of paper.
• Tell them they are going to write a day in the life of their favourite object.
• Envourage them to be creative.

For example: My favourite object is my netbook. She sometimes wakes up very early to go to school with me. She likes drinking coffee with me while waiting for the bell to ring….

MY DAILY ROUTINE

• Each student must say 3 sentences (or even more depending on the size or the level) about their daily routine. For example, I get up very early, I take the tram to go to school and I have lunch at school.
• The next student will do the same but he shouldn’t repeat the things his friend has mentiones.

HOBBIES / ROUTINES CHALLENGE

• Tell students they have to listen to each other very carefully.
• Student A tells what her favourite pastime is.
• Student B repeats what student A has said and then adds her own.
• Student C reapeats what student A and B have said and then adds her own.

MY HERO

• Create a character with your class. Decide the age, hobbies, habits, occupation, family
• Divide the class into groups and tell them to write a paragraph describing their hero.

Variation: You can do it as a chain story.

SENTENCES

• Students will make sentences using 5 words.
• They will make a sentence adding a word that begings with the last letter of the previous word. ( Susan never reads simple editions.

Variation: Choose a letter together, each word of the sentence should begin with that sentence.

JOKES

• Prepare a handout with some jokes.
• Leave out the punch line.
• Group them and ask to write their own.

PROVERBS

• Prepare a handout with halved proverbs and ask them to match the halves.

FOLLOW UP: You can discuss them or ask them which one they liked best or if there is a similar one in their mother tongue.

GENERAL TRUTH

• Write the words on the board : turn, set, occur, grow, give, rise, sea, earth, sun, plants, national disasters, etc.
• In pairs ask them to write 3 general facts using the words given.

COLORFUL POEMS

You can read it here. Instead of colours you can ask them to write a poem with the same skeleton using emotions.